by Bill Hopkins
that noisy crowd? The bad girl could be gone before anyone realized that they were dead.
Does Candy want us alive for some reason?
“Franklin,” Rosswell said, “do you know if Bobby told me a lie?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” He glanced over his shoulder, apparently to make sure Bobby couldn’t hear him before he answered. The fallen Eagle Scout chatted with two girls who appeared to be inspecting merit badges on the sash he wore. “He told you two lies.”
Franklin was perceptive way beyond his years. Rosswell hoped that Hermie had recognized that quality in his son.
“You know a lot for being as young as you are,” Ollie said.
“My daddy always said that.”
Yes! Good for you, Hermie.
Rosswell asked, “What two lies?”
“This—” Franklin demonstrated with his arms “—isn’t the letter Y. It’s an N.”
Rosswell said, “I’m guessing the second lie was about the letter E.”
“Yes, sir.” Again, Franklin demonstrated. “That’s a D, not an E.” Rosswell said to Emma Hillsman, “We’re proud of your son.”
Emma said, “It’s a requirement for a merit badge, what he’s doing here today. Hermie would’ve wanted him here. Franklin promised Hermie last year that if he got to join Boy Scouts, he’d make his daddy proud and become an Eagle.”
Franklin said, “Yes, sir. Thank you, Judge Carew.”
Rosswell said, “Mrs. Hillsman, would you and your son walk around with us awhile to see if you can spot the woman?”
Emma said to Franklin, “Answer the man.”
“Yes, sir.” After 15 minutes, they aborted the mission. None of the females in the crowd came close to Franklin’s description. Surely, Rosswell thought, the woman hadn’t been stupid enough to hang around after the bribery. Rosswell thanked the boy and his mother. After the two melted into the crowd, Ollie and Rosswell ran for Rosswell’s office. Rosswell leafed through the D’s in the telephone book, the pages rustling.
Rosswell said, “We need to find someone who smells like vegetable oil.”
“Franklin was describing someone we know.”
“Candy.”
“She does a lot of cooking but she’s not old.”
“Ollie, crap. The kid is eleven, twelve next week. He thinks if you’re twenty-one, you’re at death’s door.”
“Then . . . yeah, okay.” Ollie thought for a moment. “Yes, the kid was describing Candy. But she’s in jail.”
“Scratch Candy. By the way, what’s a cockle?”
“A clam. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.” Rosswell refused to form the picture of Emma Hillsman warming the clams of his heart.
Then, starting toward the back at the N’s, Rosswell found the only ND in the telephone book. “Ninepins Dixie? Isn’t that supposed to be Dixie Ninepins, the bowling alley? I didn’t think businesses were listed that way.”
“This is the phone company.”
“Yes, of course.”
That time of day, the sunlight shone on his desk. The telephone book, lying square in the light, couldn’t help them. Words, even when brilliantly lit on the page, mean nothing if the reader can’t interpret them. The phone book was useless.
Ollie said, “I can’t believe that’s the only ND in the whole book.”
“Believe it. That won’t help us unless someone’s been bludgeoned with a bowling pin.”
“Especially, since the bowling alley uses ten pins, not nine. Ten pins are big and common. Nine pins are smaller and not too common around these parts.”
“Why do they call it Ninepins?”
“Must be some kind of marketing ploy.”
“A ploy that’s lost on me.” Rosswell riffled through the D’s.“Dahlbert
Nathaniel. That’s the name of the detective in those P. D. James novels.”
“No, that’s Adam Dalgliesh. Not even close.”
“And you didn’t know who Mycroft Holmes was?”
“I don’t know everything.” Ollie straightened to his full height to give Rosswell his best pronouncement. “Most everything I know. But not everything.”
“Is this guy another Britisher?”
“Weird guy. He moved here from Miami last year. I set up his com- puter system. Nathaniel sells used books online.”
Rosswell dialed Dahlbert’s number, thinking that Ollie would definitely know weird when he saw it. No answer and no answering machine. “Why don’t these people have answering machines?” After fifteen rings, he hung up.
“I used to get irritated when I connected to an answering machine. Now I get irritated if I don’t.”
After noting his address, they drove to Nathaniel’s house, a trim cottage about four blocks from the courthouse. Parked next to the blue house under the carport, was a silver Infiniti with 15-inch tires. Several potted ferns sat in the shade of the front porch. A hummingbird feeder, full of red hummingbird nectar hung above one of the ferns.
Rosswell said, “Think we should call Frizz?”
“And tell him what? We found one of the two hundred vehicles that might match the description that Hermie gave you?”
Rosswell wrote down the car’s tag number. They walked to the door and Rosswell knocked. The curtain on the front window drew back about an inch. Someone was checking them out. After a moment, a tall man with close-cropped bright red hair answered. He didn’t appear to be an albino. Nonetheless, he was one of the whitest men Rosswell had ever seen.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Dahlbert?” Rosswell asked.
“The same. And whom might you two be?”
Rosswell introduced himself and Ollie. Nathaniel invited them in. After all, the two visitors didn’t appear to be common burglars. Rosswell thought that he himself looked like a vacuum cleaner salesman, maybe, but not like a burglar. Ollie looked like a hoodlum. The star-shaped purple tattoo on his bald head must not have bothered Nathaniel.
Rosswell said, “I’m trying to track down the driver of a silver car that was out at Foggy Top the other day.”
Nathaniel tilted his head, a sign of curiosity. “Sit down.” If he thought the question was odd, he gave no indication.
Ollie and Rosswell sat on the long, green couch in his living room. Nathaniel commandeered the tartan La-Z-Boy recliner.
Nathaniel picked up a cup of steaming black tea, squeezed a lemon slice in it, and asked, “Join me in a cup of tea?”
There were several white cups, thin enough to read a newspaper through, snuggled next to a silver tea set.
“Sure,” said Ollie. “Plain.”
“Make mine six lumps,” Rosswell said. “No milk. It dilutes the sugar taste.”
The end table next to Nathaniel’s chair held the telephone and the answering machine. Every inch of the room was crammed with books, categorized by their Library of Congress number. His house was neater and cleaner than Rosswell’s, who was anal about house- keeping. The thought that maybe there was a Mrs. Dahlbert flitted across Rosswell’s weary brain, and then he dismissed it with the realization that no woman would allow a man to keep all his books in the living room.
Ollie drank half his cup of tea in one gulp. “Mr. Dahlbert, have you been in the vicinity of Foggy Top lately?”
“I don’t believe that I’ve ever been in that vicinity.” His puzzled appearance seemed genuine. “Or if I’ve been close, it was by accident. I’m not sure where it is. I’m not even sure what Foggy Top is.”
What was Ollie expecting? That the guy would break down crying and confess to being the murderer? The man had never even heard of the park.
“It’s a state park,” Rosswell said, and explained how to get there. Then he said, “Have you loaned your car to anyone recently?”
When Nathaniel folded his hands together, Rosswell spotted an exact duplicate of the ring that he’d found at the crime scene. Nathaniel wore it on his right hand. There wasn’t a wedding band on his left hand.
“No,” he said. His voice sounde
d strained.
“That’s a nice ring,” said Rosswell.
“Virtus junxit mors non separabit,” Ollie said.
Nathaniel sipped from his cup. “That’s the motto on the inside of the ring.”
“Are you a Mason?” Rosswell asked Nathaniel.
“Yes, I am.”
Ollie said, “Do you know a Mason around here with the initials EJD?” Nathaniel chuckled. “Those letters aren’t the initials of a person. A breakaway group from the Masons kept a lot of the rites and symbols, but they added EJD to the motto you just spoke.”
Rosswell stirred his tea before drinking it. “What’s the translation of the original motto?”
“‘Virtue unites us, death won’t separate us’. That’s a loose translation. A lot of Latin scholars cringe when they hear the motto translated that way.”
Ollie said, “What’s with the EJD then?”
“Those are the first letters of an English motto: Even Just Die. The just in that motto is a noun, meaning ‘just ones’. Sloppy English, but you get the drift.”
Nathaniel stood and retrieved a thick volume from a shelf. “You gentleman are investigating the murders.” He leafed through the book. Its cover was brown.
Neither Ollie nor Rosswell answered. They didn’t have to. They were that obvious.
“Maybe,” Nathaniel said, “you need to buy this informative book on forensics.” Always the salesman, he handed the book to Rosswell.
Rosswell declined the book. “Thanks, but right now I don’t need that.”
“I’ve got books on every aspect of criminal investigation, from how the mind works to talking to suspects to how to do autopsies.” He swept his arm around, pointing to all the shelves. “And if there’s a title you need that I don’t stock, I’ll get it for you at the lowest cost